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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28762347">Echtra (Journey)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowkeeWB/pseuds/LowkeeWB'>LowkeeWB</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Artemis as Druid/Witch/Psychonaut, Gen, Mind/Mood Altering Substances, References to The Supernaturalist, Time Skips, What-If</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:07:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28762347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LowkeeWB/pseuds/LowkeeWB</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Artemis Fowl makes a decision during the events of the final book-- it alters the path of his life entirely and casts him forward on a journey of discovery that reveals a path towards redemption. A relatively short 'what-if' to explore the concepts of ethnological biochemistry, the consequences of exile, and the nature of magic outside of the Book.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Division</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="MsoNormal">It was chaos outside of the Ops room. The Lower Elements Police were rushing to enact evacuation plans, with a select few still attempting to resolve the hostage crisis that had initiated the panic. Artemis watched the disorder for less than a second before he could judge the ability of the People to weather the oncoming quantum storm.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Wait, Commander, Koboi must not be loaded into the reactor tube.” Artemis Fowl stood, raising a cautionary hand.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Trouble Kelp shook his head in disbelief. “Why? You just told us yourself. If Opal Koboi doesn’t get in that reactor, she’ll explode with the strength of nuclear fission when her younger copy dies. We need to contain that energy. Don’t tell me the theory just changed.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The situation room became still for the fragmentary moment before Artemis could explain himself. He tried to balance the weight of his sudden revelation with a rational explanation.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No, the theory holds. However, Opal might be capable of channeling the energy of her own explosion using magic. If she succeeds, she will become a super-powered being of pure energy.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We <em>might </em>have a nuclear Opal Koboi if she’s alive?” Commander Kelp did a double take. “What do you expect us to do? Just load her in as a corpse instead?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Kelp’s question was rhetorical, but Artemis nodded anyway. Both copies of Opal needed to be dead in order to prevent her plan-- and they had wasted precious time trying to save her instead.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Artemis? You want us to kill...” Holly was unable to finish her question. There was a level of moral wrongness there he had never before displayed.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Foaly chimed in. “If you’re expecting us to kill a prisoner in cold blood, you can just <em>four</em>-get about it.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis frowned at the reference. “I am not insane. It have only now recognized her full plan. Koboi has predicted that we would load in her into one of your reactors, where her knowledge of black magic will allow her to channel all the energy of her quantum destruction into a transformation. She is planning to emerge from the reactor as a nuclear-powered magician. That cannot be allowed to happen.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Foaly nodded alongside him for part of his explanation but stopped when it came to his proposed solution. “Killing her might stop her from turning into a Super-Pixie, but there’s plenty of other nuclear explosions that are going to happen. Focusing on them is more important, right?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Pip and Kip are on the grounds of Fowl Manor,” Artemis said. “I realized it moments ago, but Opal Koboi is the larger threat.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler stirred uncomfortably next to him. Juliet and the Fowl twins were at the Manor. He would have preferred to hear about the trespassing hostage-takers first. His family was at risk. Artemis was too busy continuing with his explanation to notice.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The possibility of these Bahjee nuclear reactions is infinitely higher in a world where Opal lives,” Artemis said. “If the elder Opal is killed, the universe is likely to stabilize on the younger version. When Pip and Kip execute their hostage, the time loop will close before any destruction can occur.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis had crossed Trouble’s invisible line. “Two deaths?” Kelp asked, almost shouting. “You want us to be responsible for two deaths based on mere possibilities? Get the hell out of here, Mud Boy.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis needed his solution to be seen as rational, but has difficulty controlling himself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I take no pleasure in having to say this, but you must order Opal Koboi to be executed for the safety of the People. It is necessary.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No,” Kelp refused. “It is not necessary, and it could never be necessary for any person I can respect.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">He faced Artemis and the trained gaze of a warrior shot out at him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Please, hear me out--” Artemis was about to play his last card when he felt the familiar prongs of a stun baton pressing against his leg. Trouble Kelp had it tucked in his sleeve to keep it out of Butler’s view. The elfin commander activated the high-voltage device and knocked the Irish boy down, before deftly stepping out of Butler’s range.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We don’t have time for a rematch,” Trouble said from his boxing stance. “If murder is all he can suggest at a time like this, we will do fine without him. You need to get your Mud Boy to the surface before we find out whether his predictions were accurate.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler didn’t retaliate; he was trained to be adaptable and this situation certainly called for large amounts of adaptation. He stopped the stunned Artemis from falling and hoisted him over one shoulder. They could get to the commandeered shuttle in time if they left now.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Captain Short, fly the shuttle up for them and secure Fowl Manor.” Trouble was rubbing his forehead as he gave his commands. “Saving the hostage is a long shot, but we still need to try.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Of course, everyone present also knew that Commander Kelp was also ordering Holly to the surface to continue the chain of custody on Artemis. He had never been so callous before, even as a villainous youth. Advocating for premeditated killing was a crime for the People.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler cleared a path through the panicking masses of fairies, wading into a surging sea of little hands and feet that soon learned to give him room. He made it to the heavy-duty piece of contraband they used as a shuttle. Holly began the start up procedures as Butler secured Artemis in the back.  Once he got himself into his seat, he realized that its cramped interior was finally a relief.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis lay with his eyes closed, strapped onto a medical cot that lay sideways on the back row of seats. His head rested on his hands, which twitched erratically.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“A bad day for rain,” he mumbled. “Deadened, we turn away from our ball. It kills the evening’s activities.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What is he saying?” Holly asked, but it was too late for answers. She had to take off, or risk the entire vent collapsing in the quantum explosion that she knew was coming.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis continued speaking into his hands. “Where is our old pal? Be the hero. Don’t make the same mistake again.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The shuttle almost didn’t get beyond the blast doors in time. As soon as they were clear in the chute, she set off at maximum speed. Their breakneck pace nearly killed them several times, but no explosion came to further lower their odds of survival. In fact, Holly’s timer ran all the way past zero with no sign of a massive cataclysm.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It was impossible to check on the status of the fairies back home. They had to get to Fowl Manor as soon as possible, and navigating the chute was taking her total concentration. As soon as they cleared the terminal at Tara, Holly keyed her radio with hesitation.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Immediately, the channel was filled with the angry tones of Trouble Kelp. “Captain Short, turn around and return that Mud Boy to LEP custody. He somehow got a transmission sent off to Warden Vinyaya in the Deeps. The warden had some kind of breakdown and ordered his guards to snap Opal’s neck. Then he got an on-site engineer to blast open a magma chute so that he could melt the body.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What about Pip and Kip?”  The description of the murder upset her stomach, but she prioritized the active situation, still piloting at supersonic speeds towards Fowl Manor.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“They’re dead. Pip and Kip killed their hostage when the time ran out. They must have been under external magical control, because they executed each other without warning right after plugging Opal.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“That’s a pretty high body count,” Holly said. “But we avoided any nuclear detonations.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The Council was listening in on the situation room in HQ the whole time. They’re demanding Artemis returns here for a trial. Either that, or we have to exile him. You know the law, Holly. He participated in premeditated murder.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly Short shut off the radio as they came in for a sudden landing on the grounds of the Fowl Manor.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Around the rear, please,” Artemis said. He hadn’t heard the radio conversation because he was in the back row. “It would not do for us to be detected.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No, Artemis. We talk here, and we talk now.” Holly was serious.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler dismounted the shuttle, squeezing out of his tight seat. He had heard the radio broadcast.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I need to secure the grounds,” he told them, somewhat awkwardly. “Until we meet again, Holly.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Abandoned, Artemis felt the tension growing within the shuttle. Holly was no longer in the pilot’s seat, having climbed into the rear to question Artemis directly. He noted the intense degree of focus that Captain Short had adopted. She was facing him with a mixture of hostility and suspicion that brought him back to the dark days of his past. There was even a hint of fear in her expression that made him feel uncharacteristic symptoms of guilt.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“How did you get a transmission to Tarpon?” Holly asked.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis pieced together what must have happened in the Lower Elements; the situation was now resolved. His next challenge was acquitting himself in the eyes of his friends.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I spoke to the warden through a fairy communicator embedded in my palm and controlled with specific muscle movements.  By only sending certain words, I could disguise my communications to Atlantis as dazed mumbling.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Then what, for Frond’s sake, could you possibly say to a prison warden to make him kill his most important prisoner and incinerate her body?” Holly found herself revulsed even to speak the words.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis returned to his memory to recall the exact words he had spoken into his hand. He removed the parts that had had not been transmitted to Tarpon.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“My intended message was a series of words presented in this order: <em>A bad day for Raine. Dead, Turnball. Kill Opal. Be the hero. Don’t make the same mistake again.</em>”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The message was short but calculated to be extremely effective, even if Artemis did not consider it his best work.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“How is a jumbled mess like that enough to get one fairy to murder another?” Holly asked. “You were just bluffing, right? You got lucky with a last-minute attempt.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“A bluff? No, not this time. I knew my order would be carried out in a specific way.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis could not help but smile at the thought. It felt good to be able to trust his own mind again, trust it enough to judge the actions of others. He pulled his loafers onto his feet, glad to finally be free of the weight of Opal Koboi.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly recoiled from the ghoulish grin that had appeared on Artemis’ face. She felt as if she didn’t know the young man in front of her, who spoke openly about murder and took joy in manipulating others to commit a crime. She thought he had recovered from the darkness he had been born into, but serious doubts had reentered Holly’s mind.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“If you didn’t use a mesmer or some kind of black magic, how could you have that level of confidence? It’s impossible. There’s too many factors at play.” She was grasping at straws, but Artemis did not notice her desperation.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He shook his head. “I understand how you might believe my feat impossible-- how could one Mud Boy predict the actions of an elf he did not know?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis couldn’t help but smile again, struggling to suppress the improper emotion. It was impossible to hide. His body was filled with relief.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“But what if I was not operating on an information deficit?” he said. “Suppose I had access to the inner workings of Tarpon’s mind, complete with the details of his survivor’s guilt and the trigger words that would re-activate the trauma within him and provoke a mental break?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The sheer extent of Artemis’ cold calculation stunned Holly, but she pressed forward for the sake of the audio recording the shuttle was making. “Are you saying that you had access to all of those facts about Tarpon? How? Health records have been kept on paper for decades to protect them from digital snooping.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, it just so happens that I have had routine access to the offices of a certain J. Argon,” Artemis said, smirking.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“D’Arvit,” Holly cursed. The answer had been under her nose the entire time. “Tarpon was being treated at the Argon Clinic. You stole his files during your own therapy visits.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis shrugged. He thought Holly, at least, could have predicted he would take the opportunity to do a bit of light reading on the fairy psyche.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Tarpon was responsible for the escape of Turnball Root. I needed to ensure that I could influence him if the situation required it.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly’s frown of concentration tightened. Artemis could tell that his explanation was only making things worse, but he could not lie his way out of it. He saw Butler give the ‘all-clear’ signal from the front gate of the Manor; knowing that his home was secure would allow him to relax.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Let me get this straight: You took advantage of a troubled fairy by stealing confidential mental health records.” Holly’s voice lacked any sense of sympathy for Artemis as she reviewed her findings. “You were planning to control him from the beginning and knew exactly how to use his trauma as a murder weapon.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I would contest the phrasing, but the logical sequence is true.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Artemis, that’s murder.” Holly’s accusation echoed in Artemis’ mind.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I would like to provide a justification,” Artemis said. “But that is impossible to do. The strongest elements of my defense are tied up in probabilities and unobserved phenomena.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Make a case, Artemis,” Holly said, strangely quiet. It was a tone she rarely used.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Opal’s scheme was centered on being alive when her clone died. She knew fairy authorities would prioritize saving lives. I knew I could pre-empt any scheme by removing the beneficiary from the equation.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly could not to stand to hear any more of this. Artemis had recovered from his Atlantis Complex but the years of trauma seemed to have caused his degeneration as a moral being. She was no friend of Opal Koboi, but he spoke of the pixie as if she were nothing but a variable. Instead of taking true responsibility for her death, he focused on hypothetical parallel realities.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Artemis, the Council will seek charges of first-degree murder. During the trial, Tarpon will blame you for manipulating him. With your current testimony, you would likely be found guilty and imprisoned for a minimum of one century. That’s longer than your natural life.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">She gave him a look that he could not comprehend. Their connection had been placed under extreme pressure after the Time Paradox, and his erratic actions when he had been afflicted with the Atlantis Complex had again alienated them. By shamelessly admitting his role in the death of Opal Koboi, Artemis suspected that their connection was now severed entirely.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We could have stunned her before she went in,” Holly said, quietly, as if to herself. “She didn’t need to be killed and then discarded like trash.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We have seen her brain scans: Opal Koboi never truly slept, even when sedated. The risk of her living was too high.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The <em>risk </em>of her <em>living</em>?” Holly was incredulous. “You said the risk was that she would absorb all of the energy of her detonation.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis sighed, resting his head in his palms. He was having trouble explaining his logic -- the relief that had come from besting Opal was getting in the way.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Please, Holly, you misunderstand me,” he said. “If you consider this from the standpoint of probability, this is the best outcome we could have asked for.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Enough!”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly’s shout shocked Artemis. She pointed a finger at his face.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What matters to me and the LEP are the four dead fairies,” she said. “I don’t know enough about quantum probability to debate this with you. It’s a matter of criminal justice now.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Criminal Justice? It was an act of defense, I can hardly see how a trial could even take place.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly came to her own decision and kicked open the shuttle door in frustration.  She whirled around on Artemis to grab him by the collar of his shirt.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Artemis Fowl the Second! The People suspect you are responsible for the death of Opal Koboi.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">It was what the LEP said when they arrested subjects. She had said it to dozens of criminals before.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Come to Haven City and face trial, or accept that you will be separated from the People as an exile without any of the rights of fairy-folk.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">It did not take long to decide against a public trial. Artemis knew that if his best friend among the fairies was now accusing him, he would have no chance defending himself against a court of strangers.  He had too much to offer the human world; gambling his life away on a trial would be irresponsible to future generations.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the end, his decision came down to probability. Artemis took the sure bet and faced Holly with his new resolve.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I will not place myself at the mercy of the People,” he said. “I choose exile.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly said nothing; Artemis only knew she had heard him when she pulled some kind of soft cloth over his head. The dark fabric blocked all light and muffled all sound. He felt himself be pulled to his feet and then pushed backwards out of the door.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The sunlight hit his body as his feet became tangled with each other, and he tumbled into grass. For a moment, he heard her voice, but could not understand it, after a few moments, a wave of heat warmer than the sun blew over his body. Artemis pulled at the covering but found it fastened around his neck.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>Was this exile? To be shunned forever by the fairies?</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">He sat, stunned. His clothing flapped and the drone of the shuttle’s engines rattled his teeth. Rich, moist soil coated him, blown by the thrusters of the vehicle as it accelerated away. Holly was gone, without a single word. He was cut off from the Lower Elements, and magic, and all of the things that had changed his life for the better.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Heavy footfalls announced Butler’s arrival, running at a sprint. He untied the cord that had fastened the bag to his principal’s head. Blinking, Artemis squinted his eyes against the light as he tried to read the golden print that had been embroidered onto the black fabric-- it was one word, written in a spiral.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>Outcast, </em>it read. The Book had described exile as a punishment for certain fairy lawbreakers, but had included no details on how the sentence was carried out. Somehow, the covering had been prepared beforehand without Artemis seeing it-- had Holly anticipated his exile?</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler examined Artemis for a concussion but found no signs. With the rest of his body unaffected, the check-up was over.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“On the physical level, you have no injuries,” he said.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Hmm.” Artemis was staring into the cloth in his hands. It was a mark of shame that told him he was a murderer. Holly had left him with one last memento of what he had sacrificed.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We need to speak about what happened down there,” Butler said, sternly. “But this is not the time.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis brushed dirt and dust off of his jacket. “I agree. I still need to greet my brothers, discard my clothes, and bathe. I am completely unpresentable at the moment.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler shook his head. “I meant that our primary concern should be the three dead fairies on your property.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the excitement, Artemis had forgot about Pip, Kip, and the young Opal. He accompanied Butler to the site where they had all died. Under their masks, the hostage-takers were just two gnomes, absolutely unremarkable. Opal Koboi was disheveled and beaten, looking absolutely pathetic in death, her wrists tied behind her back and her mouth taped shut.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We will bury them on the hillock outside the wall,” Artemis said. “It is likely that the bodies will be retrieved by the fairy authorities.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler knelt, inspecting one of the gnomes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“We won’t have to do too much digging. I’ll retrieve a shovel. You need to secure some bed-sheets. Do not let Juliet or your brothers see you.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The two split up. Artemis had to use some deductive reasoning to find the linen closet, but was able to select two white sheets that appeared oldest and most worn. If the LEP was going to dig up the bodies as evidence, it made no sense to ruin the better sheets in service as burial shrouds. He distracted his brothers by remotely activating the sprinkler system and then stole across the grounds at a jog. Butler cut one of the sheets in half and began to wrap the gnomes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The last one is your responsibility,” he told Artemis.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis got to his knees in the mud and grass. Opal was light enough that even he could lift her. The torn children’s clothes she was wearing made him almost feel guilty. He deposited the body on one end of the sheet and rolled her up, folding the edges so that all that left of his regret was a three-foot bundle of cloth.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler slung both Pip and Kip over his shoulders while Artemis held his burden in front of him. A number of meters out from the wall, a low hillock with a single tree provided a suitable site for the burial. Butler dug the first two graves, working the shovel easily through rich topsoil. Artemis watched and tried to memorize Butler’s methods, because he knew he would be made to dig the grave for Opal.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler brushed sweat from his brow with one hand and stepped out of the shallow grave he had made. He held the shovel out to Artemis with one gigantic hand.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis shed his ruined blazer and rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. The wooden haft felt rough to his fingers. The first time he tried to pierce the grass, the shovel bounced off, sending vibrations straight up into his arms. He improved his angle and finally the steel head sank into earth.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I think I have to leave you,” Butler said, after Artemis turned his shovelful of dirt over.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Another shovelful of dirt followed the first. Artemis waited for his guard and oldest friend to explain himself, but Butler did not speak.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You must leave me? Or you wish to leave me?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I must leave you,” Butler said.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis nodded as if it was somehow natural to hear such news while digging a grave, but his mind was working on dissecting the statement. <em>Why now?</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Madame Ko is considering retirement,” Butler explained. “She has asked me to replace her as the newest master of the Personal Protection Academy.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>Normally, he would turn down such a request out of hand. Outside of Juliet, his own sister, Butler had always prioritized Artemis.</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">“That always seemed something of a hereditary position to me,” Artemis said, nonchalant as he forced himself to dig. He tried to ignore the growing magnitude of his loss.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Madame Ko has no suitable heirs. I am told there is a niece that excelled at her training, but never gained any field experience. She apparently eloped with her first principal.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Oh dear,” Artemis said in sympathy. Loose soil was beginning to enter his loafers.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>So he is ‘pulled’ by a duty to Madame Ko. What pushes him away from me?</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler knew him well and answered the question on his mind. “Artemis, I will be honest: your recent behavior has shocked me. I thought you had left your callous actions and sinister plots in the past, but today’s events have proven that I was wrong.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler’s arms were crossed as he spoke.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“It was a matter of necessity.” Artemis stopped digging long enough to snap at him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“That is what concerns me. You ordered the death of someone today out of necessity. How could a teenager like you be placed in a situation like this?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“My capabilities exceed those of a standard sixteen-year-old,” Artemis said. “My responsibilities must also extend beyond my age.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Your capabilities are quite limited without my personal guarantee of protection.” Butler had spent a lot of time preparing to discuss this. “My presence has enabled you to risk our lives many times. I cannot fulfill my oath to protect you when my own presence enables such risks to be taken. I must leave.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>His timing is impeccable. By forcing me into exile, the fairies can no longer draw me into their troubles. Without active physical security, I cannot engage in mischief. Even more, he knows I will not order him to stay if it means ignoring his own responsibilities to Madame Ko.</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">It was the one thing that Artemis could not have prepared for. He could think of at least a dozen strategies to keep Butler in employment, but none of them would retain his loyalty. Not a single plan to keep him here would let Artemis preserve Domovoi’s respect.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Very well, old friend,” Artemis said. “I suspect your departure will not be immediate?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler shook his head. “No. With your permission, I would insist on giving you <em>some </em>self-defense training before I left.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I would welcome that,” Artemis said, only lying partially.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Artemis’ face was well on its way to being coated in sweat. He had never thought graves required such exertion. He stopped to swab his face with his shirt, seeming not to do much.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You’re halfway there,” Butler said.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The excavation continued for what felt like hours. Artemis’ consciousness began to drift between his task and all the things that had happened that day. Opal Koboi was (doubly) dead, but it had lost Artemis the respect of his two greatest friends. Holly had been appalled to hear his open rationalization of killing. The risk of quantum nuclear explosions had reminded Domovoi of the absurd stakes Artemis had brought upon them. And with four dead fairies, there were tangible signs of the danger and violence that would await him if he continued on his path.</p><p class="MsoNormal">When the digging was completed, the day had already passed near to dusk. The hole was at hip-height for Artemis, which made the task of interring the young Opal Koboi quite easy. The other Opal would never get a grave. Artemis used the shovel to tip all of the dirt he had dug over her, patting it to form a mound. Butler gave him a stone to mark the grave. Then the ordeal was done, hours after it had begun.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What now?” Artemis asked, too exhausted to think for himself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Domovoi fixed Artemis with his intense gaze, the sun behind him. “Now you train.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Addition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="MsoNormal">Butler trained Artemis for a year, and then left him. There was no antipathy between them. Indeed, their friendship had only grown when Domovoi no longer needed to guard Artemis. They kept in contact on a near-daily basis. Artemis kept mainly to Fowl Manor, secured by millions of dollars of security systems and experimental automated defenses. He used all his time at home to rush his way through St. Bartleby’s curriculum and through a university degree under his own name.</p><p class="MsoNormal">His father had elected to move out and leave the Manor to Artemis. Artemis Senior’s time as a hostage and his near-death experiences had developed into an active sense of unease around the old house. He would instead create his own ecologically-sound villa on a certain Irish island. Artemis Junior was only too happy to facilitate the change for his family. He had come to prefer solitude.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Once his family moved, taking their staff with them, Artemis decided not to hire replacements. Naturally, this meant a minor degradation in the beauty of of the manor, but he could still prevent the worst damage from being wrought on the estate and its grounds. The morning hours would start with meditation, then the necessary chores, before spending the remainder of time until noon managing his business interests.</p><p class="MsoNormal">After lunch, he would dedicate time to his various intellectual pursuits. Evenings and nights were partitioned as ‘free time’, which often meant settling down with a book and a bottle from the Fowl wine cellar. Sometimes he would have more than a few bottles. There was a surplus of excellent wines from some very impressive vintages. Artemis came to enjoy the sensation of ruination that drinking the valuable collection brought him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Despite his expectations, the Lower Elements Police had not shown up within the past three years to secure the buried fairies, even though they were outside the walls that constituted his ‘home’. In fact, there was no sign of the People, anywhere he looked. On the eve of his 20th birthday, he paid the grave a visit.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The mounded earth had long since sunken in, and grass covered everything except for the stones marking the dead. In two graves, the gnomes he would only ever know as ‘Pip’ and ‘Kip’. In the other grave, his greatest nemesis, Opal Koboi. Artemis tried to feel some sense of loss, but all he could conjure up was a mild satisfaction. Despite all it had cost him, he had won. He would never have to worry about her again.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>Better you than me, </em>Artemis thought. It was the closest he could get to respecting the evil that lay beneath the earth. Then he knelt down over the grave and began his harvest.</p><p class="MsoNormal">After seeing to an ongoing project in ethnological biochemistry that evening, Artemis decided to celebrate with a bottle of Irish whiskey and a David Bowie record. He was not in the mood for his more refined music, and Bowie was one of the few ‘modern’ artists that he could tolerate. As was his habit in recent years, he indulged in drink beyond the boundaries of responsibility. Who was there to chastise him? What force could compel him to change his behavior?</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>No one, nothing.</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">He lay on the chaise lounge in the solar, reaching an arm about above him and staring at his hand.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>In Irish, we call whiskey </em>uisce beatha<em>. The water of life. How curious.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">From his understanding, Irish monks called distilled alcohol by that name based on the older Latin ‘aqua vitae’. It was not meant to be the literal essence of life, but the coincidence was curious enough to make him grin blearily.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The previous song ended and Bowie’s “<em>Heroes” </em>began to play<em>.</em> It was a favorite of his.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>“We can be heroes, just for one day.”</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">All that he was, everything that he had done, led to this moment of emptiness on his birthday. The thought disturbed him. He had held himself above the human need for companionship, but his self-imposed isolation on the grounds of the Fowl Estate had proven him wrong. Except for the occasional visit from family members, he had no guests. Now his birthday would pass without note, as if it were nothing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>As if I were nothing. </em>Artemis added.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He found the moment of relaxation ruined. He set his empty glass down on a side-table and staggered to his feet. It was just about to become midnight.</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>The witching hour.</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">He was careful on his staircase, but hurried once he reached the bottom floor, rushing through the halls on bare feet. He knew what would make the occasion of his birthday memorable. Drunken fingers keyed in an entry code next to an unremarkable doorway. His voice authenticated the locks and then his lab greeted him with harsh light. Artemis began looking for the distillate he had been working on that very earlier.</p><p class="MsoNormal">‘<em>Ethnological biochemistry’ indeed. I must not delude myself. What I have been working on is an experimental mixture of multiple herbal extracts, selected especially for their properties as hallucinogens and deliriants.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis had been doing some light reading on magic and witchcraft out of a nostalgic curiosity in the power he had briefly held. Artemis knew magic was real. Thus he doubted that the fairy Ritual could be the only pathway towards it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">One subject of interest had emerged in herblore produced during the times of old. According to certain secondary sources, an herbal product called ‘Flying ointment’ had been used in certain magic-practicing subcultures. Descriptions of the ointment suggested that certain toxic plants could be mixed together to produce a psychoactive ointment suitable for topical application. The supernatural flying ‘travels’ of these witches could easily be dismissed as drug-induced hallucination, but the idea still caught in his mind.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He had already completed the distillation of the diverse ingredients (<em><span>Salvia divinorum, Atropa belladonna, Mandragora officianarum, Panaeolus cyanescens, </span></em><span>among others<em>)</em></span>. He just needed to mix the ointment. Artemis rummaged in a drawer (an act he would normally not need to do) and found the wild hemp he had harvested earlier that day from Opal’s grave site. Much of what he had read emphasized the connection between burials and magic. He had cast some hemp seed by the graves a few months ago; When the plants survived, he took it as a good omen. Instead of using animal fat, he would mix hemp oil and beeswax as the base for his tincture. He had installed a machine press in the lab for that very purpose, using cold-pressed oil to best incorporate any potential source of influence.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He was inebriated, but could still operate his laboratory equipment with a reasonable amount of precision. Artemis combined a few drops of his potent distillation with the oil and beeswax. When heated and stirred, they would combine together. At the last minute, he decided to double the dose, even if it would be twice as dangerous to test.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>Quoting Shakespeare, am I?</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis stirred his round-bottom flask over a double boiler. Even if the chant was nonsense, it felt like a very witch thing to do.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He remembered how that particular piece of the play had ended. “<em>Cool it with a baboon’s blood, then the charm is firm and good</em>.” He pricked his finger on dramatic impulse, and watched the blood drip out, already thinned by copious amounts of <em>uisce beatha</em>. The addition felt right to him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He did not wait for the mixture to cool down naturally. He poured it into a chilled copper cup and let it cool to solidity in the lab freezer. When it was ready, he pulled it out and held it above him with a dramatic flair. There was still much of Orion left in him, coming out only when he had enough drink.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He rushed to spread the pale green salve across his body. It helped that he was already in nothing but a smoking jacket and silk underwear. He rubbed it into his chest and neck, and across his calves. With what remained on his hands, he also coated his brow and cheekbones, framing his eyes. Artemis had no idea where that notion had grabbed him. Everything he was doing felt unreal, even discounting his existing haze.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Obviously, if there was any truth to the idea of ‘flying ointment’, he did not want to be shut inside of his sterile lab when its effects began. He remembered to bring a quick-injection tube filled with the antidote, just in case his dosage had been too eager. He departed out into the halls of Fowl Manor. As he moved, he felt a peculiar sensation of lightness take possession within him. He had not expected the salve to be effective so quickly.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis shouted an order to the Manor’s automated system. “House! Begin the stopwatch.” It did not respond, because Artemis had begun to consider voiced computer systems a waste of precious silence.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He wanted to make it upstairs, where his writing materials were. He felt the need to document what was happening at that very moment. The lightness of his body had spread to his head. He took a few steps down the hall, passing in front of wall sconces guarded by knights in armor. <em>Where were the stairs?</em></p><p class="MsoNormal"> Artemis had become lost in his own house. He turned back to see where he came from. It was the same hallway full of long-dead knights, but it had no visible origin. Instead, the hall continued in an unending line behind him. It was an infinite distance. When he turned around to see where he was heading, the hallways ahead of him had also changed. He faced a deep black corridor that became nothing, led to no one.</p><p class="MsoNormal">On an intellectual level, Artemis knew that he was experiencing a hallucination. That did not change the practical fact that he was currently perceiving a completely different physical space. He checked behind himself to see the past. The knights of the Fowl family turned their heads to look at him. They saluted him, lifting their armored visors to reveal a deep nothingness within. The remnants of his ancestors and those sworn to their service. <em>From nothing, to nothing.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">“I understand,” Artemis said. “This is a manifestation of my inner psyche. I am experiencing a moment of deep reflection on myself.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The knights remained frozen in their salute. The display could be intuitively understood from the nature of the armor: hollow metal shells of a long-forgotten conflict.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, if you are all made of nothing, and the way ahead is made of nothing, I should think to choose the option that advances me.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis turned away from his family’s past and stepped forward into the void of the corridor ahead of him. The stone under his bare feet remained, but became less cold. He walked in darkness, unafraid of where his path might lead. That lasted until he took one step too many and found himself falling from the edge, tumbling down into the void. All around himself, he could perceive nothing. Artemis Fowl fell into that imperceptible void and continued falling.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>Open your eyes</em>, his thoughts commanded him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The order made no sense to Artemis. His eyes were open. <em>How else could I have seen? </em>He pawed in the darkness, feeling himself drift without gravity in a space beyond his ability to conceptualize.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>Open your eyes, </em>draoi. <em>What did you anoint your eyes for, if not to see? </em>The usage of the Irish term surprised Artemis. It was not a language commonly spoken around the house, even if he had a working knowledge of it.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Feeling sheepish in the face of his own thoughts, Artemis forced his eyes open.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He was flying in the night sky, high above the Irish coast. He could recognize the spot where Dublin would be, and the Fowl Estate north of it, but no lights twinkled below him. Artemis could not stay aloft for long. He was being drawn down to the ground, or maybe it was the Earth that came closer to him.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> He recognized what he was traveling towards, at least. It was the fairy terminal at Tara; he had approached it from the air before. The Earth spun beneath him as he came closer, day and night alternating like flickering lights-- time accelerated in front of his eyes. He began to see flashes of people appear below. They were dressed in simple clothing as they labored around him, building the burial mounds that would become famous centuries later. It seemed as though he was being brought forward in human history. The figures moved too quickly for him to track their progress. He realized that he was hovering directly over the Stone of Destiny, the pillar of rock for which Tara had become known.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He did not know how long he remained there. It was certainly interesting to view ancient people work with monuments of stone. They paid no attention to him and continued to assemble structures. <em>Perhaps he had misjudged his mixture of herbal ingredients and was experiencing a lethal overdose?</em> Artemis could think of worse versions of an afterlife than watching the world form itself below him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The progress of the ages finally stopped at one evening in particular. The sky above Artemis was filled with bright stars, clearer than could be seen in his own time. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of a grunt. Several grunts in fact. He looked down below his feet and realized that the area around the stone was now lit with torches. In the grass bordering him, he saw two figures in flickering shadow, one smaller than the other, like a fairy would be.</p><p class="MsoNormal">If Shakespeare were to describe the scene in a euphemism, he could have said that the two figures were ‘making the beast with two backs’. The couple was supervised from a moderate distance by a bearded man in a robe. He held a long stick above them, a large sheaf of herbs tied to its end.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The man noticed Artemis watching, and gave a start, as if surprised. The grunting couple continued their business while the man with the herbs sidled around them awkwardly, until his back was to the stone.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What are you doing here, <em>bráthair?</em>” the druid spoke out of the side of his mouth. “You have chosen quite the time to be sight-seeing.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The druid seemed fully human in stature, so Artemis presumed he was something of a mediator. Artemis realized that he had somehow stumbled onto the crowning ceremony of one of the fabled High Kings of Ireland. It confirmed his suspicion that the sovereignty goddesses the High Kings were said to be ‘married’ to at Tara were actually fairies, most likely elves. The High King and the ‘goddess’ were likely fulfilling some sort of treaty obligation, which made Artemis’ sudden appearance awkward on multiple levels.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“My apologies,” Artemis said in the universal language of dreams. “I am not used to this sort of thing.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The druid gave him a sardonic look that seemed to say <em>Oh, really?</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, at least you can help me. When I give the signal, could you give a loud roar? You are already a projection, and it is much cheaper than casting the spell myself.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis nodded, unsure of what he was getting into. The druid watched the High King and his partner with a businesslike intent, while Artemis looked away politely. When the druid started shaking his herb-stick wildly, Artemis presumed it was his time to give a vocal performance. He roared, and his voice shook the Earth beneath him. Torches were extinguished in a large gust and thunder rumbled, although there was not a single cloud in the sky. The lovers stopped moving, although he could see them clasped to each other, shaking.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Gods above, what was that?” the druid asked. “What sort of charms are they brewing in your time?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis shrugged loosely, or at least the apparition of himself did so. His powers were beyond the druid’s own expectations, clearly, but Artemis was also surprised by the energy of his call.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, I should send you on your way as repayment for your favor, at the very least,” the druid said. “Your luck must be great. You arrived at the conception of your ancestors by pure accident. I knew a traveler once who got themselves stuck in some lousy cave for a thousand years. Take more care next time, <em>brathair.</em>”</p><p class="MsoNormal"> If Artemis had just watched an ancestor being conceived, it would explain where the fairy blood had entered his family tree. It also proved he was a distant descendant of grand royalty, which he had a much easier time taking pleasure at.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, <em>bráthair, </em>enjoy the trip,” the druid said, shaking his stick and reciting something under his breath. Artemis felt time begin to move again at the bidding of the man, first slow but soon taking off in a rip-roaring course. The druid faded from sight. Artemis was not cast up into the Earth, but instead flew just meters above the ground, faster than he had ever been in a plane. He phased through everything in his path, heading in another familiar direction. Home.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis recognized the hill Fowl Manor would sit on, unoccupied at the current moment in history. But he sensed something even deeper below the ground, not as a visible object or mere aura but instead as a swirling pattern that arose when he looked at a certain area. It was where the Martello tower would be in his own time. He had presumed the tower was just a ruin from old coastal defenses, but this vision was suggesting that the ruin he knew had been built over a much older tower. Before his eyes, this ancient tower was being buried in the sediment of ages.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He directed his attention towards that tower, bringing himself closer to it through his own will. He did not know how he sensed it, but as he approached, it became clear that there was a strong magical spell there. A burst of energy shot up from the earth and flowed towards him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What manner of creature approaches the circle of Bruin Fadda?” a voice asked him, filled with a powerful authority.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No one but a humble traveler,” Artemis said, his body resonating with his words.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“A Mud Man travels <em>here</em>?” the voice was incredulous. “This is the very edge of your world. Go no further, lest you destroy yourself.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Decades ticked by like seconds. Artemis felt a spiraling shiver descend down his nerves, then turn and climb his body. He could not answer the spirit of the fairy circle, but he could feel its power weaken slightly as time accelerated past them.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Well, at least one millennium has passed following your arrival,” the voice said. “It is only proper to introduce myself. I am the warlock Bruin Fadda, and you have come across the greatest of all magical works, the hidden device which I created to protect all fairies.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis peered down below the tower, finally seeing the spiral of energy and the souls it held in place. Each was filled with a murderous rage that tinted his vision red just by looking upon them.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Speak, Mud Man. You have made me curious, and I suspect I will soon be buried deep, without much to interest me.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis finally seized control of his body from the flying ointment. “Greetings, Bruin Fadda, master of magic. I am a friend to the People.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">He felt the magic imprint of Bruin Fadda scan his body, taking special interest at his fairy eye.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“So you may be,” the voice of Fadda said. “It matters not in the balance of things. The remainder of your kind threatens the older and truer inhabitants of this world.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You are not wrong.” Artemis had no rebuttal to Fadda. Humanity had not been friends to the Earth.</p><p class="MsoNormal">They passed a few millennia in a compressed silence, the Earth morphing in a timelapse ahead of him. Artemis suspected that he was the one skipping through time, while Bruin Fadda had to experience these intervals at their full duration. By the time they talked again, the tower was buried. Artemis could see longships along the coast. <em>Norse raiders?</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">“My spell weakens with each season. By the time 10,000 years have passed, my soul will go to Danu. How about you, ‘Friend of the People’? Where will you go?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">He recognized the name of the Gaelic mother goddess of whom little was written. “Can I not go to Danu?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Not unless your wish is to leave this world for all time.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis thought for a few centuries. He saw the beginnings of Fowl Manor as a wooden palisade with a few buildings within it. It made him yearn for the past, for those earliest years of his life when he learned of his ancestors and dreamed of their lives and stories, hoping for a place among them. Bruin Fadda sensed Artemis’ instinctual response to his home.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You have traveled here from the future? Tell me, quickly, what of the People? How fares the House of Frond?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Frond’s line survives,” Artemis said. “The People have lived safely beneath the Earth, armed with many weapons of power.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Bruin Fadda had no time to say more. The companionable silence of ages was interrupted by a furious bolt of magic, shooting upwards through the Earth. Opal Koboi arrived, composed entirely of magical energy. Artemis felt a strange euphoria at seeing this alternate reality. It confirmed his fears and his suspicions. If Opal Koboi had lived, she would have gone further than ever.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis could see the smoke rising from Dublin, could sense the many lives lost. The quantum explosion here had killed many, many people. In stuttering hyperspeed, he saw Holly, and Butler, and his parallel self scramble to fight Opal. For the most part, they lost. In a final gambit, he saw his young self drag a hooded figure into the circle for surrender.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Bruin Fadda interrupted his attention. “It seems my soul is no longer needed. The pixie has convinced me to let up the locks, despite my doubts. I left my comrade Oro behind, in case this Queen proved to fall victim to the weaknesses of pixies past.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Opal almost immediately failed the trust that Fadda had put in her. The two spiritual figures watched from above as Opal caught on to being tricked by the young Artemis Fowl and cast a lightning bolt into her clone. Bruin Fadda sighed.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“10,000 years, and this fool is all who shows up to claim my legacy? I would rather have been forgotten.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis was unclear on the details, but it was clear that his younger self prevented Opal’s plan. It had cost the life of Nopal, and likely thousands of lives elsewhere, but the world had not ended and everyone Artemis knew was alive. But Bruin Fadda’s spell had the last say on the matter. Artemis saw himself die as the doomsday spell concluded, his other self torn apart by a wave of free energy. He saw his soul being borne aloft by some magical updraft. This must have been the moment he had waited millennia for.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He bolted forward with all of the power that had launched him into the past. Artemis Fowl grasped the hand of his younger self and thus prevented his parallel soul from disappearing into the vortex above.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Hello, Artemis,” his younger self said, composed even at his death.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Greetings.” Artemis the Elder was currently on a metaphysical trip and under the influence of many substances. Simple words seemed best.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Thank you for the assistance,” the younger said. “I was not sure I would have the capacity to preserve myself for the half-year or so it will take for my replacement body to be produced.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I am glad to be of assistance,” he replied, glad that his sense of decorum was strong enough to carry him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Even still, there was something strange in the younger Artemis’ eyes, as if he was suppressing a reaction to what he was seeing. Artemis the Elder realized that he was unshaven, drunk, and poisoned. Not the best state to be greeting company in.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He tried to explain himself. “I come from the world where you killed Koboi in Haven.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“On which occasion?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The most recent. You would have used the warden of the Deeps. The fairies exiled me, Butler deserted me, but only four people were dead by the end of the day.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The younger Artemis nodded. “I suspect you did not enter the oxygen chamber. I did, and my senses were too dulled to determine Opal’s plan.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Looking at the consequences now, would you have chosen differently?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The younger looked at Butler, Holly, Juliet, and his brothers below. They were mourning his death with a shared sorrow that seemed to warp the world around them.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I... am not sure. In the heat of the moment, I am sure that I would have chosen death for Opal. But now that I float above it all in spiritual form...”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis the Elder understood. He did not have to hear any more.</p><p class="MsoNormal">It seemed the spirit of Bruin Fadda had held on too. He gave the impression of being bemused at seeing spiritual duplicates of a Mud Man. “I go to Danu now. While the way is still open, I might speak of you to her. She may be interested in greeting a curiosity such as you.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I would be grateful,” he said to the warlock.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Bruin Fadda nodded and faded away. Artemis willed time to go faster. It took quite a lot of effort to hang on to his duplicate soul.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Six months came and went, flowers springing in a spiral from the old tower and farmland replacing the grounds of the manor. Finally, their friends could be seen far below themselves, placing the replacement clone in the center of the magic circle.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Goodbye, Artemis.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Farewell, Artemis.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The soul of the younger Artemis dove into his new body. Artemis the Elder watched friends reunite below him and then directed his vision away to Dublin Bay. He did not want such reminders of what he had sacrificed. It was satisfaction enough to know that some version of himself was safe and loved. His vision danced and shook in the waves; he realized that the effects of the flying ointment were peaking. He had been so absorbed in the strange events in front of them that he often forgot the phenomena unfolding within himself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Under the influence of the magical compound, his mind spread along bicameral axes, his thoughts looping upwards through reconfigured cognitive space. He was a body assembled of organs composed of tissue formed in cells built by atoms which themselves were an assemblage. His mind’s eye dove into that endless pattern, spiraling through fractal depths of unlimited complexity. Finally, he had found something that exceeded him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the midst of that sea of thought, Danu announced herself. He felt her as sunlight on his back, even though he knew the sun was setting to his front. Artemis turned to face divinity, and instead saw nothing but light. His vision was covered in a gentle field of brightness that obscured just as well as absolute dark would. He could feel an unbearable gravity behind the light, a magical power far greater than Bruin Fadda.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis calmed himself. “Danu.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"> The voice was delivered to his mind, his nerves shimmering from its calm intensity. “Greetings, <em>leath</em>-ling.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Half-ling?” Artemis asked. “What has made me incomplete?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Your mortality. Half of your life has been lived already. Even if you return from this <em>echtra</em>, you will only have a score of years remaining to you.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis accepted the premature news of his death quite well. He considered his upcoming death with his conscious mind while his body’s senses did the metaphysical equivalent of gymnastics.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I am in debt to you for this revelation, but I beg to ask why such a figure of divinity would deign to address me.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I have given my blessing to certain humans before. My daughters and sons have shown favor to the valorous and the virtuous of your people. I am a goddess to fairies, but there are those among ye who have proven their worth in my eyes.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>Not me, </em>Artemis thought. <em>Not a murderer.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">Danu read his thoughts. “There is such a thing as necessary destruction.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis saw burning forests giving way to new growth. He saw burials and births. He saw Opal die. He saw Opal live. It was a lurid surreality perceived through his soul and not his eyes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He saw himself, collapsed on the stone floor of the Manor, chest seizing. He felt Danu watching it all with him just behind his left shoulder, an unseen expanse of energy.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“There ye lie, on the border of death. Ye may cross over at the very next moment.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis had risked a heavy dosage of toxins to ensure results, and it seemed that death was indeed one notable result. In the face of his own ending, Danu’s light seemed preferable to any unknown.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“If I cross over, would my soul go to you? Would I be reborn?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“No,” Danu said. “I have already told ye that I am no deity for your kind. Now or in twenty years, your final journey will take ye far from me. I may offer my blessing and preserve ye for twenty years hence, but ye be no fairy and I have no dominion over your soul.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis wanted to live, even with the half-life remaining to him. He didn’t want to die alone on a cold floor, drunk and poisoned.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Then I ask for your blessing, O Danu.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Ye will be bound by an obligation of service. A Labor will be provided to ye, if it is agreed that it will be executed faithfully.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis wanted to agree, but a highly functional corner of his mind halted him. Caution was needed.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“May I know what this Labor is?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The vision projected by Danu zoomed out from the dying Artemis, out through his home, through Ireland, all the way into low-Earth orbit. In front of his very eyes, Danu split the globe into a cross section of itself, with a faint green glow showing wherever there was life. Humans lived a tiny existence spread across the surface. The People had an even more concentrated existence in deep pockets. Elsewhere closer to the surface, Artemis saw other forms of life that did not match anything he knew of.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>How curious, </em>he thought.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“This is your world as it exists now. It hangs in the balance. Already the systems protecting the world are being damaged. There are some among ye who care, some among ye who do not, and many, many more who will never perceive their role on the Earth. Allow me to show you what will result from the current state of things.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis recognized history accelerating again, only this time, he was seeing the future. Cities grew tall. Life expanded and reproduced. Just as quickly, war and conflict broke out, with missiles launched from across continents. The era of general peace ended, replaced by global war. Artemis saw a single gigantic satellite launched into geostationary orbit. Soon, other launches agglomerated onto it and the satellite became a bizarre technological chimera that seemed always on the edge of falling to Earth. Directly below that satellite, a new city was built in an unending surge of concrete and metal, a paradox-city that was both sprawling and dense, both powerful and impoverished.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Full of life and yet full of death, that city beneath the satellite was a place saturated in suffering. Artemis could feel the concentrated misery of a populace who felt themselves slowly dying and yet could not escape. It was a city where greed ruled, and good people were squeezed of all life before being slowly ground into dust.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In front of his eyes, the world warmed and the atmosphere became poisoned with a hundred different pollutants. Weather became monstrous. Wars broke out with brutal efficiency. Millions died in moments. More satellites were launched, more cities came. The Planet Earth became a thoroughly diseased thing. Of the billions of souls on its surface, more people began to die than began to live. Finally, Artemis saw desperate drilling programs venturing deep into the Earth. The doomed billions of his kind sought resources in the last unspoiled places beneath the surface. Fairies were discovered. Nuclear weapons were used. Nothing was gained. It was all lost.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What <em>is </em>this?” Artemis asked.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“This is the future of your world, fated to be so when you ended the life of Opal Koboi.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">He looked at the irradiated remains of Haven. “I caused this?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“The cause is not yours. Your actions have only directed ye into a world where the greed of others brings the end of your Earth.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“And the other Artemis?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“In his world, evil will be tempered by the combined power of those who love the Earth.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Hearing that his actions led to a doomed world was not doing anything for the ‘vibes’ Artemis was feeling right now. He found his immense psychic self-loathing tempered by the force of Danu.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What must I do?” he asked.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Find the resolve to save more lives. But it will also demand that sacrifices be made.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">
  <em>More killings? One would think I would be a pacifist after all that I have seen.</em>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">“With each Labor, you will save countless lives. You will preserve fairies and humans, and all the other life that shares the planet with you. What will you do with this knowledge, <em>leath</em>-ling? Will you die now, having seen the end of your world? Or will you stand now for the life of all things?”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis was in no position to argue. He had accepted the consequences of his actions when he decided to kill Opal; the path Danu wanted to guide him on was an extension of his penance. <em>Who cared if he died at age 40? Pascal only made it to 39.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">“I accept this duty, O Danu.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Then you have my blessing. Your life has been preserved at just this moment, but remember that your service must be completed by the New Year.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">He wanted to ask why, but could not perceive the space necessary to interrupt. Even if Danu did not consider herself a deity of Artemis, her projection of power within his mind was undeniable, even as the form retreated from his perception.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Be well, <em>leath</em>-ling. Be just. You will see me in your dreams.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The light projected by Danu faded, and Artemis was left in the void, his body trembling, fingers twitching to an involuntary impulse. Slowly, he realized that he was returning to his body, exiting the spiritual vessel that had borne him through the long night. His chest rose, hitched on a breath, and then fell.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>I am still poisoned, </em>Artemis thought.</p><p class="MsoNormal">His eyes opened to the dim light of the manor’s entrance hallway, vision still impaired by streaks of light. A sense of nausea had completely replaced the euphoria of his journey across space and time, a deep sense of unwellness that eclipsed any of the other feelings he could be having about that strange journey. He remembered the antidote that still lay in the pocket of his smoking jacket. With a trembling hand he grabbed the auto-injector and slammed it into his thigh, holding down to let the spring-loaded syringe release a mix of neutralizing agents into his bloodstream.</p><p class="MsoNormal">His heart stopped its palpitations within sixty seconds, thus resolving the primary threat to his life. All other aspects of intoxication were acceptable, insofar as he could still command his body. He lay a good while on the floor, regaining his strength as his pupils swung wildly across the ceiling, absorbing the details above him. The wood joinery above the foyer had become crystalline in its angular perfection, and it tried to draw his attention away from the tasks he had just been given. His life had now become a time-limited project. His next 20 years would be spent in triage, even if Danu’s prophecy proved untrue.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The home computer system informed him that roughly 5 hours had elapsed from when the flying ointment had been applied. He had been all the way into the past and witnessed the end of the world in a distant future, but it had barely taken more time than a nap. It would be simple to dismiss all of these occurrences as hallucinations, but Artemis had never read of such focused journeys being the product of drugs. The details had been too specific, the words he exchanged too clear.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><em>I believe in magic, </em>Artemis thought. <em>That is what distinguishes me from the other leading minds of the world.</em></p><p class="MsoNormal">Still, it would be the height of irresponsibility to accept his visions as absolute truth. He first had to confirm what he had seen. The most obvious option was the tower of Bruin Fadda, which appeared to be located on the grounds of the estate. A full excavation would take too long, but he could devise something using magnetometry or radiometry to confirm an object buried beneath the ruins.</p><p class="MsoNormal">He had a sudden yearning to go outside. Artemis pulled the deadbolt of his front door and undid the complex system of locks and biometric authentications. He stepped outside on his bare feet, feeling the chill of the early morning across his bare chest.  A waning crescent greeted him from just over the horizon. He looked for the red dot of Mars and found it as a dim ocher spot, even with the lights of Dublin polluting his view.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>My plans for Mars might need to be delayed
temporarily, </i>Artemis thought. Then he fell to his knees and vomited into a
bed of coneflowers.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Subtraction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="MsoNormal">Ishii Myishi’s vast criminal-corporate empire was difficult to destroy. It took nearly every remaining year of Artemis’ life on Earth. But whenever his will faltered, he thought upon the oncoming future, upon visions of satellite cities and the world-to-be where death would become trivial.</p><p class="MsoNormal">At last victorious at the age of 39, Artemis Fowl the Second was preparing to make his final departure. He met Butler briefly in Japan, where he had now grown truly elderly. He had married the true heir of Madame Ko, the woman named Shizue, and had acted as father to her children (while adding to that number by one).</p><p class="MsoNormal">“It is a good thing you have long since given me up,” Artemis said. “I don’t think I could let you follow me into my next life.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Butler had frowned, his eyes still sharp, his body resolute. “You don’t have to go. There must be other options.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis embraced him with a body that had grown weak, a heart that had weakened in function even as it grew strong with feeling. Such was the price of his <em>echtra</em>. He lost time on Earth but was gifted with vision to act as a bulwark against Armageddon. He could accept that bargain. After all, he had taken such odds before with Opal Koboi’s life, and he was no hypocrite.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Or so he told himself. There had been bitter years where he cursed himself for poisoning his heart in the earliest hours of his 20<sup>th</sup> birthday. Ever since then, he had continued his isolation to protect those he loved from the wrath of Myishi and other villains (such as Lord Bleedham-Drye). But the end result was worth it: countless lives were saved. He even had enough time to say his farewells to them before leaving.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The fairies were not included in that number. The People held firm to their sentence of exile. In part, Artemis was relieved by this. He had nothing more to say. The closest he could come to making amends was treating his life with just as much care as he had treated those of others. He would not apologize. That was why he was surprised when, the night before his departure, he heard a knocking on his window. When every piece of detection technology in the manor failed to identify his visitor, he knew who it was.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Major Short,” he said, hitting the button to lift the armored window. “Please, come in.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">She unshielded and he saw the insignia on her uniform. She did not look much different than his memories, but her rank had certainly changed.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Commander Short,” Artemis corrected himself.</p><p class="MsoNormal">She took a position on the windowsill. “It’s a very recent promotion. But that’s not the reason I’m here.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis nodded. “I suspect this visit is regarding the message I placed in the probe.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">She lifted an eyebrow. “Message? That was more than a message. Thirty-thousand words of heavily revealing information regarding all forms of life you know on Earth. I’m sorry to say Foaly zapped anything that mentioned the People before it even got out of orbit.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“What about my mentions of Danu?” Artemis asked.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You know what Foaly is like. He refused to remove anything that, in his words ‘was clearly just New Age Mud-Man fanfiction’.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Artemis smiled. “I hope there are no plans to interfere with my departure tomorrow.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly looked uneasy. “What you're doing tomorrow... It's a little much, isn’t it? But you won’t have to worry about our intervention. You’re headed far beyond my jurisdiction.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Finally, my daring escape,” he said. He had become even more sardonic with time.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly looked at him. There were things she wished she could say regarding their friendship and the long years of his service protecting the Earth. But this was their first meeting in decades. They lacked any real rapport, and Artemis was still an exile.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“I’m sorry,” she said.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“You have nothing to be sorry about. From the beginning, I took it all as my responsibility. Everything that I have lost was mine to sacrifice. It is... unfortunate, but it is <em>very  </em>fair.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">Holly got back on her feet and re-engaged her wings. She no doubt had already spent too much time talking with an exiled enemy of the People. But she had one last message for him.</p><p class="MsoNormal">“Good luck.”</p><p class="MsoNormal">The following morning, he began his final journey. They had built a towering monument for him down by the equator, and he flew himself there in the early hours before the sun had truly risen. His attendants were waiting for him there with all their implements. He was ritually washed and clothed in an expensive garment for his final journey. Upon his command, they packed him into the vacuum-sealed suit that would preserve him. From there he had to load himself into his own pressurized casket. Artemis had prepared himself through training for the tight confines and the deep blackness within the radiation-shielded box.</p><p class="MsoNormal">The sarcophagus was borne up to the pinnacle of his towering monument and packed in a capsule among all of the things he would need in his next life: food, water, shelter, power. Then the entire bier was moved to its launchpad via a gigantic platform of his own design. He kept in contact with the dedicated personnel overseeing the ritual.</p><p class="MsoNormal">As they began to fuel the rocket, he thought of all that he had lost. As they ran through the final checklist, he began to think of all he had gained. And then, as they began the final countdown, he wondered whether his assumptions were correct.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Danu said he wouldn’t live past the age of 40 on Earth. But she had never said anything about whether he could live much longer in outer space. Indeed, after researching certain medical techniques only possible in microgravity, Artemis had begun to piece together a plan for his full medical recovery-- and the beginning of his saga on a distant planet.</p><p class="MsoNormal">They hit ‘t-minus zero’ and Artemis felt the engines come to life.  One last <em>echtra. </em>He repeated the mantra as he held on through the violent shaking as his rocket pierced upwards and he felt his heart pump haltingly. He imagined the flames trailing him as he rode off into the sky on a heavenly chariot of his own making.</p><p class="MsoNormal">One last <em>echtra.</em></p>
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